1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for managing a network, and more particularly to techniques for registering and updating management information which defines operations of a variety of information processing devices on a switched network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a shared media network such as Ethernet, the network is generally managed on physical components of the network. Management information utilized for monitoring of the configuration and operational situation of the network, communication control, and so on is also managed collectively for all components on the network. The management information may be related to each other in a complicated manner. Particularly, a large scaled network involves complicated registration and update operations requiring a large number of steps which must be performed by an administrator when the configuration of the network is modified.
Switched networks, which utilize ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) techniques to realize faster communications, have been increasingly spread in the art. A switched network may be represented by a logical configuration in addition to a physical configuration defining actual network components. It is also possible to divide a physical network into a plurality of closed area networks, each of which may be managed as an independent network. In this configuration, management information may also be managed for each closed area network. Such a logical network is referred,to as a "virtual network". A construction and management of a virtual network is described in detail in "Rush into Virtual LAN" in Nikkei Communication, Nov. 21, 1994 issue.
In an organization of an enterprise and so on, positions of employees may be frequently changed due to personnel changes or the like. With personnel changes, information processing devices such as personal computers, workstations, and so on may be moved to new offices together with their users. According to the prior art mentioned above, management information can be easily updated as long as modifications are limited to the configuration internal to each closed area network forming part of a switched network. The prior art, however, does not at all take into account registration and update operations for modifications to the configuration, due to changes in positions of the users or the like, which involve a plurality of closed area networks, i.e., virtual networks.